PROF VIJAYAN AND THE DIGNITY OF DEATH

Sometimes, television journalism sucks. It's filled with inequalities, disasters, corruption, malice and viciousness that men are capable of. But there's one cardinal rule that no journo breaks. And that has to do with death. Everyone, absolutely everyone, has the right to a dignified death. And that's exactly why Professor MN Vijayan's death and the coverage of it was such a sham. It was treated like a television spectacle by the national media. With headlines like "Camera par maut" and "Aakhri saas, camere par", the Hindi channels threw out of the window any semblance of decency that has to be given to a dying man. Leave alone a renowned intellectual like Vijayan Maash.

This is what happened with me. And I am still cringing in shame. I was called by a producer from my sister channel with the seemingly innocuous question. "Zakka, do you speak Malayali." I had half a mind to tell him, “uh..it’s not Malayali, it’s Malayalam mate.” But you can’t do much about other people’s ignorance, can you? But this was just the beginning of the dark hole of incapacity that I was being led into. I reached the PCR from where the show was being directed. It had the top editorial brass of the channel giving directions to the anchor. Not a soul, not one, knew who this man was or why his death would leave such a void. From my limited knowledge of the man, I had to tell them that this guy deserved more respect than what he was being subjected to.

Later a friend called up from Kerala and said the Malayalam channels didn’t fare too better either. They too treated it more like a tamasha, for a large part of the afternoon. It was only after viewers started calling in and started heaving abuses that better sense prevailed.

The man maybe gone, but the relevance of the issues he raised still lives on. In fact it lies at the heart of the ideological divide within the CPM. Professor Vijayan cried hoarse at the foreign money that was being bombarded into God’s Own Country in the name of development. With his death, the voice of dissent within the Left has become feebler. And less reasonable.

Prof Vijayan was a hounded man in his last days. He had a slew of defamation cases filed against him after he was thrown out as Editor of Deshabhimani, the CPM’s mouthpiece. But there was a façade of justice, as the Kerala High Court had acquitted him in one such case, just a week before his death. He was addressing his first press conference after the acquittal, when death came calling. A quote of George Bernard Shaw became his famous last words. Fitting, for a man who started his career as a literary critic. Rest in Peace Vijayan Maashe.